{"id":862,"date":"2025-08-18T18:48:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T10:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/?p=862"},"modified":"2025-08-18T18:48:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T10:48:09","slug":"atletico-beaten-by-espanyol-in-la-liga-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/18\/atletico-beaten-by-espanyol-in-la-liga-opener\/","title":{"rendered":"Atletico beaten by Espanyol in La Liga opener"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Espanyol staged a late comeback to grab a shock 2-1 win over Atletico Madrid on Sunday as Diego Simeone’s men made a disappointing start to their La Liga campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pere Milla scored a late winner as Atletico stumbled to defeat in Barcelona despite leading through Julian Alvarez’s brilliant goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Atletico have been busy in the transfer market, with notable arrivals including Alex Baena, David Hancko, Johnny Cardoso and Giacomo Raspadori, in a bid to challenge Barcelona and Real Madrid for the title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Angel Correa, Rodrigo De Paul and Cesar Azpilicueta have all departed as part of the rebuild after Simeone’s team finished third, 12 points behind champions Barca last term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barcelona kicked off their title defence with a 3-0 win at Mallorca on Saturday, while Real Madrid host Osasuna on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Slovakia centre-back Hancko had the best chance of a cagey opening half-hour for Atletico but could only head straight at Espanyol goalkeeper Marko Dmitrovic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The visitors forged ahead in spectacular fashion in the 37th minute, though, as Alvarez curled a free-kick into the top corner, well beyond the dive of Dmitrovic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alvarez went close to doubling Atletico’s lead just before the hour mark when he crashed a shot against the post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Espanyol hit back 17 minutes from time as Miguel Rubio netted after a set-piece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Substitute Milla completed the turnaround, heading in Omar El Hilali’s cross to snatch all three points for the home side in the 84th minute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Athletic Bilbao got off to a winning start as substitute Robert Navarro’s late goal sealed a dramatic 3-2 victory over Sevilla.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nico Williams’ penalty and Maroan Sannadi’s strike put the Basque club two goals up at half-time at the San Mames.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Dodi Lukebakio fired in off the post on the hour to cut the deficit before Lucien Agoume drew Sevilla level with 18 minutes to play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Navarro had the final say in the 81st minute, though, giving Bilbao an opening win as they look to back up a fine campaign last term when they finished fourth to qualify for the Champions League.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Espanyol staged a late comeback to grab a shock 2-1 win over Atletico Madrid on Sunday as Diego<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":864,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862\/revisions\/864"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}